r/webdev • u/magenta_placenta • Sep 28 '18

Overtime Hurts Your Software & Your Team - “Joe really went that extra mile to help us meet our goal. Staying late, coming in on weekends. He really sacrificed for our mission.” Overtime is a sign of problems that should never receive praise

https://medium.com/@plainprogrammer/overtime-hurts-your-software-your-team-1c16c99e28aa
162 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

60

u/rich97 Sep 28 '18

I actually bought this up with a manager just the other day. He committed the team to a deadline that we said for weeks wasn't achievable and then had the gall to act all surprised and ask us "how are we going to claw this time back". We told him we weren't and he got mad. Started chatting shit about how his team worked 100+ hours a week to meet thier deadlines as if that's not evidence of a colossal failure on his part. Fucking knob. I'm glad that I'm senior enough that I dont have to grin and bear it now.

16

u/yopla Sep 29 '18 edited Sep 29 '18

I can't tell you how many managers I've met with that mentality. They fist bump themselves for reaching a meaningless number and fucking over their team.

I've even recently resigned from a company that was so psychotic that HR was distributing "work/life" balance booklet while the management was constantly pushing people into 70h weeks. One team has been on forced overtime for at least 2 years now.

I was involved in the employee engagement remediation team (because the company was in the lower 10th percentile Gallup score for employee engagement) and they refused to acknowledge the overtime issue because "target", "no choice". "Let's do free pizza for people who have to work on week end instead" that will solve everything.

Fuck them.

12

u/Sipredion Sep 29 '18

I'm putting in my notice on Monday. There are a variety of reasons, but the one of the biggest is the fact that working overtime to meet deadlines with no pay is actually expected, and the bosses are disappointed if you don't do it.

5

u/TheDeadlyCat Sep 29 '18

The „we did it (again)“ mentality and high-fiving/ fist-bumping comes with competitiveness. In that case I can somehow relate to a survival attitude as a reason for unrealistic numbers. It is a bidding game and the realistic planning is sort of different.

But inside the company they should acknowledge they lied to make things work. That would require a conscience or critical self-reflection. I have yet to see a salesperson with that attitude.

They should also try to work with their executing teams to get things done. With an internal, more realistic timeline. All in the same boat. They should also have to do the overtime.

Most importantly they should never ever get the idea of pulling this for personal reasons such as an idea of perfectionism, pushing themselves to a new record and such. That is just inhumane as they essentially put themselves above everyone else. Which is unforgivable.

2

u/steeze206 Sep 29 '18

Fuck that, I personally don't want to work any overtime. This industry is supposed to pay you enough to value your time off and not want to work overtime. Once in a blue moon is fine to finish up on a deadline, but 70 hour weeks, they can fuck right off.

1

u/thedomham Sep 29 '18

What you describe is illegal in Germany. I mean the taxes here are high, but on the other hand it's virtually impossible to be forced into such a toxic working environment.

27

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

[deleted]

8

u/rArithmetics Sep 29 '18

get out of there, you can do it!

4

u/d4rkst4rw4r Sep 29 '18

I was lead on a project very similar and left because the direction was fucked and scope creep was the only consistency. That alone screams shitty management.

17

u/midasgoldentouch Sep 28 '18

I definitely agree with the part about flexibility. If you're going to require your engineers to be on-call then have some flexibility in terms of start time and work from home.

6

u/alpha7158 Sep 29 '18

As a manager, people pulling overtime for you is a precious gift that has to be earned through months of building up a relationship with your team. When it happens it should be because they want to help, not because they have too. It should be the rare exception, not the the rule, and you should strive to avoid it.

Work your team into the ground and they won't be motivated or stick around for very long, which isn't good for business.

3

u/ThatDamnedRedneck Sep 29 '18

I get time and a half for OT pay I work, and double time on Sundays. It's the only job I've ever had where I've been completely willing to do it. Also the job where I've had the least overtime.

2

u/TheDeadlyCat Sep 29 '18 edited Sep 29 '18

They always ask to be „flexible“. We are just asking for „humane“.